St. George spearing the dragon, in a historiated initial from an illuminated choirbook, manuscript on vellum [northern Italy (Verona), c.1490-1500]

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

a cutting, 165mm. by 123mm., with a large initial 'M' in purple-pink acanthus leaves with architectural column base and head at its centrepoint (suggesting the central bar of the initial) and blue baubels at the midpoints of the ascenders, enclosing St. George in ornamental gold armour on a white steed, spearing the dragon through the head as a woman looks on, all on burnished gold ground, remains of two lines of text with music on a 4-line red stave on verso, some scuffs and small areas of flaking, slight discolouration overall and gold of saint's armour now crystalline, else fair condition, framed

Provenance

provenance

(1) Identified by Hans-Joachim Eberhardt as most probably from a series of monumental choirbooks made by the Veronese master-artist, Girolamo dai Libri (1474/5-1555) for the Monastery of San Giorgio, Verona (Miniatura Veronese del Rinascimento, Museo di Castelvecchio Verona, 1986, pp. 267-69, cat. no.69, illustrated p.268), and thus a miniature of the patron saint of that community . The choirbooks there were commented on by Giorgio Vasari in the sixteenth century: "Miniò Girolamo ... molte cose ... ai frati di San Giorgio", but survived the Middle Ages only as a series of 40 initials in an album seen by Luigi di Canossa in 1911 in the collection of the Counts Miniscalchi Erizzo (La famiglia dai' Libri, Atti e Memorie dell' Accademia di Agricoltura Scienze e Lettere di Verona, XII, 1912, p.112).

(2) Antiquariat Walter Eichenberger (advertised in Weltkunst 54, 1984, p.2136); sold to a Swiss private collector.

Catalogue Note

illumination

This fine and delicate miniature has been attributed by Eberhardt to the early style of Girolamo dai Libri. Vasari records that at an early age his artistic abilities excelled those of his father, the illuminator Francesco dai Libri (1452-c.1501), and by the age of 16 Girolamo had executed a great altarpiece for the Lischi Chapel of Santa Maria in Organo. Another initial enclosing a Pentecost and of near identical proportions, was in the Rodolphe Kann sale in Paris, 1907, and is no.85 in Voelkle and Wieck, The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, 1992, pp.214-15. They are perhaps from the same manuscript.